Design and prototype implementation of indoor air quality monitoring using LonWorks technology

Abstract

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows indoor air is 2-3 times more polluted than the worst outside air. These pollutants also lead to simple asphyxiation as general health hazard which ensures the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring. Therefore maintaining a good indoor air quality improves the health zone of the peoples both in urban and rural areas. Peoples in rural areas are more affected because burning woods and papers are common practices occurring since there is no much awareness about indoor pollution. Studying about indoor air pollutants is important in order to know about the health hazards caused, exposure limits and sources of the pollutants in the living place which makes a right path way to know about the presence and absence of particular pollutant. The proposed system comprises of low cost sintered metal oxide gas sensor which are general air contaminant sensors. These sensors can sense gas concentrations in ppm level which makes it suitable for the indoor air quality monitoring. Testing of the sensors is been carried out in microcontroller to study their real time characteristics. Later sensors are connected to the LonWorks module. LonWorks technology is a cost effective protocol for building automation system. This communication protocol ensures reliable and energy efficient solution to building automation system.